Sherlock Goes to Solo & Ensemble
by FurtiveLeisure
Summary: Before he was Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, he was just Sherlock Holmes: ordinary teenager. Essentially this one-shot is a "take your favorite character to work" fic, except Sherlock is taking his violin to Solo & Ensemble. Has not been brit-picked.


Navigating the parking lot was a nightmare. Horns honked and drivers swore at the men in neon orange vests who had volunteered to direct traffic on this cold, rainy day. Further clogging up the parking lot was the football team which just _had_ to practice today. Sherlock was being dropped off by his elder brother Mycroft, so at least he wouldn't suffer through the crucible of finding a parking spot in the hullabaloo. Mycroft would have to though if he wanted to see his little brother's performance.

Mycroft stopped the car, and Sherlock grabbed his music and violin before jumping out. He approached the school. Once inside, he spotted the long queue of musicians and parents at the front information desk, so he bypassed it. He already knew where his warm-up room was anyways because he attended here. Right, Left, left again, last door on the right. Before his first left turn, there was a miniature information desk with only two student workers. Sherlock noticed the map on their desk and paused to peruse it briefly. The stickers labeling each room were color coded, so Sherlock glanced at the map key, then the map, and tried to memorize as much of it as possible in 3 seconds. It was a kind of game of his.

Sherlock passed his performance room and considered examining the list of scores posted outside to see how the participants were faring under this judge before dismissing the idea. If the judge had been "easy" and given out six 1s, then Sherlock wouldn't try as hard just as the judge decided that he needed to be stricter before handing out the seventh 1 in a row. If the judge was "harsh" and had awarded a few 3s—better not to know. Hence, Sherlock carefully did not look at the posted scores outside performance room 14.

Inside the room, there were two check-in desks. In order to find out which one was checking in people for section 14, he did something unusual: he listened. Another musician was already conversing with the two desk clerks on the right.

"Room 13 or 14?" asked the small blond boy.

"13!" the musician half-shouted. (It was very noisy in here.) The desk clerks simultaneously pointed toward the left desk. Well, that answered Sherlock's question. Now he wondered if there was a third student worker for section 14 check-in.

Sherlock stepped up to the table. The blond boy softly shouted, "13 or 14?"

"14," Sherlock announced loud and clear.

"What time?"

"11:27"

The boy ran his finger down a list, "Sherlock…Homies?"

Sherlock winced at the mangled pronunciation, but nodded anyway.

The clerk handed him a slip of paper and a pencil saying, "Fill out the gold card, then return it and the pencil".

Sherlock set his violin case down and filled out the card right there at the desk. The boy and the brunette continued their game of hangman. It currently read I'_ / _ o r e _. When Sherlock held out the filled in gold card, the brunette desk clerk looked up and exclaimed "Hey! Aren't you in the orchestra?"

The irascible violinist considered telling the girl that she was asinine; he was holding a violin and playing at solo and ensemble—of course he was in an orchestra! Unfortunately, she probably wouldn't get the joke even if she did hear him over all the noise. Besides, that wasn't what she had asked; she had asked if he was in _the_ orchestra, as in the school one. So Sherlock simply nodded.

"Where's your name tag?" she asked.

"I'm not working: orchestra kids only have to work one of the solo & ensembles, and since I'm preforming at this one, I decided to work the middle school one," he answered.

"Huh?" questioned the brunette, cupping a hand to her ear. Ugh, this was wasting Sherlock's precious warm-up time. He hadn't come half an hour early to _chit-chat_.

"It fell off!" Some of Sherlock's frustration leaked through, but it was a plausible enough lie. He had seen a "hello my name is" sticker stuck to the hallway floor on this way in, and both of the desk clerks had lost theirs already.

He walked away before she could respond and found a spot to set up. Tuning was mildly difficult since his violin's sound waves had to compete with those from a dozen other stringed instruments in the crowded room. Watching the blond boy approach a musician and ask if they were ready, Sherlock inferred that room 14 was being manned by just the two of them. Not enough parking, not enough rooms, and only the bare minimum number of workers. To be expected of a public (read: government-funded) high school. At least Sherlock had remembered to bring his electronic tuner.

As he tuned his instrument, Sherlock noticed an accompanist come in and ask how the room was running.

"13 or 14?" asked the brunette.

"14"

"We're running about an hour behind" said the girl.

"What!?" Sherlock ejaculated.

"I _said_ we're an hour behind" she reiterated.

Sherlock resisted the temptation to roll his eyes and explained, "I have a duet in an hour"

"oh…"

The blond boy piped up "Well, our 11:15 is still waiting for her accompanist. If her accompanist doesn't show up, you can go next"

It was 11:00 now; Mycroft only had fifteen minutes to show up, and Sherlock would only have fifteen minutes to tune, warm-up, and walk down to the performance room. "That's acceptable" he found himself saying.

At 11:13 one of the clerks, holding the gold sheet Sherlock had filled out and given to them, asked if he was ready. Sherlock paused a beat before answering; his violin was tuned, he was warmed up, Mycroft still hadn't arrived yet. Sherlock looked up, and spotted his elder brother scanning the room for him. He smiled. "Yes" he said confidently, looking at Mycroft and wondering how he had found a parking spot so quickly. To be pondered later. As Sherlock passed room 14's check-in desk, he glanced at the game of hangman and noticed that the previous one's answer was I'm / B o r e d, and he was pretty sure that the second one was k I l l / m e / n o w.


End file.
